Situating Toronto's Former-Yugoslav Immigrants in The

Ruptures in Canada’s Nationalist Narrative:

Situating Toronto’s Former-Yugoslav Immigrants in the Indigenous-Settler Context

Stefan Jovanovic

a thesis

presented to the University of Waterloo

in fulfilment of the

thesis requirement for the degree of

Master of Arts

Public Issues Anthropology

Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 2017

AUTHOR’S DECLARATION:

I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis, including

any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I understand that my thesis may be

made electronically available to the public

ABSTRACT:

With the increasing prevalence of Indigenous discourses in the public consciousness, it becomes clear that the role of immigrants in the Indigenous-Settler dynamic has yet to be understood, and is particularly understudied in its Canadian context. However, given that nearly half of the population in the City of Toronto is composed of immigrants, it presents a rich research opportunity. As a Toronto-based immigrant from Former-Yugoslavia, I decided to conduct research with my own community. This thesis investigates the positionality of the Greater Toronto Area’s (GTA) Former-Yugoslav immigrants in the context of Indigenous-Settler relations. My research suggests that this community is situated within two ruptures of the Canadian nationalist narrative – paradoxical realms of multiple co-occurring imaginaries. As displaced peoples, they are privileged beneficiaries of the Canadian state while simultaneously being denied access to the Whiteness of the Canadian-Canadian ethnic identity. The ruptures are exposed by the relational positionality of Indigenous peoples to Former-Yugoslavs; in other words, Indigenous peoples play a central role in the identity of the GTA’s Former-Yugoslav immigrants. The very existence of Indigenous peoples in Canada shatters the illusion of inclusivity in the multiculturalist narrative by exposing (1) the rupture of injustices acted upon Indigenous peoples by the Canadian state, which maintains its marginalization of these communities via multiculturalism; and (2) the rupture of the relational nature of Whiteness by challenging it as a monolithic identifier of ethno-racial categorization in favour of pluralistic forms of identity. Thus, Former-Yugoslav immigrants are Settlers who have potential for solidarity with Indigenous peoples.

iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

I reserve my highest gratitude for my supervisor Seçil Dağtaş whose direction and patience have shaped the success of this research project. I would like to thank my co-supervisor Jasmin Habib for her meaningful contributions to this project, as well as my committee member Jennifer Liu. I

would also like to thank my graduate cohort for their support throughout our time together.

Finally, I express gratitude to my interlocutors for sharing their lived experiences with me.

Dedicated to the pursuit of informed action.

TABLE OF CONENTS:

AUTHOR’S DECLARATION...... ii

ABSTRACT...... iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...... iv

DEDICATIONS...... v

CHAPTER 1...... 1

CHAPTER 2...... 10

REFERENCES...... 36

Chapter 1:

Introduction

Public anthropology has recently become popular for many sociocultural anthropologists.

Its importance stems from growing desires for activism, and from the way that its contributions have reshaped the relevancy of anthropology to the non-academic world (Rylko-Baur, Singer, and van Willigan 2006:185).1 Traditionally, two of anthropology’s greatest strengths are in understanding marginalized narratives through ethnographic techniques (McGranahan

2006:263), and in giving voice to those who have none (Fassin 2013:223). However, in addressing public issues, anthropologists must also strive in exposing the dynamics of hegemony by “studying up” (Mosse 2005, 2006) and ‘studying through’ rather than only ‘studying down’.

Adopting a public issues approach to anthropology is well suited for investigating the role that immigrants in Canada play in Indigenous-Settler discourse.

Indigenous peoples are considered by some intellectuals to be one of the three foundational peoples of Canada (Saul 2008:21). However, the past ~200 years have seen turbulence (at best) in relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous publics. In recent years,

Indigenous groups across Canada have formed resistance movements that seek to peacefully assert Indigenous sovereignty through decolonization - the most prominent being the Idle No

More movement. While a continuous dialogue exists regarding the tension between Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations, the diverse roles immigrant communities play in the

Indigenous-Settler dynamic is unclear. Consequently, an opportunity arises for the systematic study of immigrant populations on a community-basis to determine their understanding and perceptions of Indigenous peoples, and to determine their positionality in the Indigenous-Settler

1 Robert Borofsky, “Defining Public Anthropology”, Centre for a Public Anthropology, May 11, 2011. < http://www.publicanthropology.org/public-anthropology/>

context. The primary purpose of this research is to “situate” such knowledges (Haraway 1988) in the case of Former-Yugoslav migrants in the Greater Toronto Area through ethnographic investigation. In addressing a public issue, this research will gauge the potential for solidarity among the Former-Yugoslav immigrants with Indigenous peoples in Canada, providing a template for future research with other migrant or marginalized communities.

Chapter 1 will define the ways that this research is a public issue by highlighting its relevance to public discourse. First, I will briefly contextualize the positionality of Indigenous peoples in relation to immigrants in the Canadian national narrative.2 Next, I will describe some of the prevalent stereotypes of Indigenous peoples on Turtle Island (North America), providing examples of those that my Former-Yugoslav interlocutors have internalized. Finally, through the analysis of two public cases, I will demonstrate the consequences of stereotypes when they are internalized by various publics. This chapter will conclude with a discussion on the most suitable venues for the publication of Chapter 2, which more concretely explores the positionality of

Former-Yugoslav migrants in the Indigenous-Settler context of Canada.

Indigenous Positionality

Since Canada’s inception as a nation-state, it has disadvantaged the Indigenous peoples who live within its modern borders. Its early nationalist narrative was constructed using the prevalent racial theories of the 1800s (Mackey 1999). This narrative defined Canadian identity by the central racial category of Northern-Whiteness and its perceived superiority over

Indigenous peoples (Mackey 1999). The resulting racialization of Indigenous peoples as the

2 For a more comprehensive discussion on Indigenous and immigrant positionality, please refer to Chapter 2.

Savage ‘other’ justified their elimination through displacement, contamination, and extermination (Day 1998:43).

In pursuit of colonial expansion Northwestwardly from the earlier colonies of Ontario,

Québec, and Acadia, Settler-colonists relied on large-scale immigration to populate the colonial frontier (Day 1998:43). These immigrants were classified according to racial hierarchies in relation to White Anglo-Saxons (Day 1998: 52). The tension between White superiority and the diversity of newer immigrants have ultimately complicated Canadian identity with the paradoxical addition of multiculturalism, which simultaneously racializes and integrates immigrants (Day 1998, 2000). Liberal multiculturalist ideology has ensured the continued marginalization and displacement of Indigenous peoples in Canada, whose claims to sovereignty were continually undermined by its underlying racially colourblind rhetoric (Byrd 2011:xix;

Saranillio 2013:281).

Subsequent failed attempts were made by the Canadian state to mend the rupture in the

Canadian nationalist narrative created by its exclusion of Indigenous peoples. These attempts included human rights violations such as the assimilatory residential schools, the so-called ‘60s scoop’, and the infamous White Papers that sought to legally disenfranchise Indigenous people.

These policies and initiatives resulted in what Day and Sadik (2002:5) describe as the embodiment of two contradictory positionalities for Indigenous peoples in Canadian media: (1) as racialized ‘Indians’ who burden Canadian society; and (2) as disadvantaged members of

Canadian society. Sadik’s binary can be further complicated by considering the diversity of stereotypes which together construct the perceptions that new and old Canadians hold of

Indigenous peoples. Some of these stereotypes have been documented in my discussions with my

Former-Yugoslav interlocutors living in the Greater Toronto Area.

Stereotypes among Former-Yugoslavs

In his book The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North

America, King (2012:53) identifies three Indian stereotypes that are prevalent in North America.3

These include: (1) the “Dead Indian”, based on the notion that Indigenous peoples have disappeared from North America entirely and exist only through mythologized imagery; (2) the

“Live Indian”, based on the living Indigenous people who are rendered invisible by their marginalization; and (3) the “Legal Indian”, based on those Indigenous peoples who have official recognition by the government, and are perceived as having economic privilege. There are several examples where my interlocutors demonstrated having internalized these stereotypes.

My interview with Filip, a software engineer from Sarajevo (born in 1959, arrived in

Canada in 1997), involved discussing some of the cultural and linguistic revitalization efforts among Indigenous peoples. Filip commented that such Indigenous groups are trying to be like

“real Indians”. This utterance is consistent with King’s Dead Indian stereotype, whose underlying assumption is that only prehistoric Indigenous peoples are authentic. King’s stereotype also assumes a single monolithic identity for all North American Indigenous peoples as constructed from numerous historical stereotypes (Black 2002:609), represented by generic imagery of traditional garb and symbolism to create the illusion of authenticity (King 2012:54-

55, 65).

Another example of negative stereotypes emerged in my interview with Bojan, a civil engineer from Sarajevo (born in 1962, and arrived in Canada in 1991). While sharing an

3 I should note that my use of the word Indian is not intended to be pejorative, as is the case in Canada. Rather, I do so to respect King’s choice of the term as the North American default for a collective of peoples that previously had no shared identity (King 2012:xiii).

anecdote with me, he explained that his engineering friend was tasked with installing fibre-optic cables to develop the digital infrastructure of Indigenous peoples in the North. He expressed his opinion on this development by commenting that these Indigenous people will have faster

Internet than people in Toronto. Bojan’s opinion is consistent with King’s stereotype of the

Legal Indian, who evokes the image of a freeloader who receives handouts from the government

(King 2012:70).

When discussing what can be done concerning the plight of many Indigenous groups in

Canada, my interlocutor Ilija, a software developer (born in Belgrade in 1984, arrived in Canada in 2003), spent a significant portion of the interview contemplating how to integrate Indigenous peoples into Canadian society in order to solve their social issues. He compared the state of

Indigenous affairs with that of the Roma people in Belgrade, where there have been numerous initiatives to integrate Roma people into Yugoslav and Serbian society. Initiatives like these have repeatedly failed based on the fallacy that these people need to be saved from their perceived savagery. Ilija’s emphasis on the self as the “savior” and the Indigenous as “helpless” is reminiscent of Atwood’s (1996) ‘victor’ and ‘victim’ dichotomy of stereotypes. By positioning

Indigenous peoples and Settlers on a spectrum of aggression-to-suffering, the dichotomous stereotypes of ‘victor’ and ‘victim’ are applied respectively.

Atwood notes that through time, the dichotomy she identified is applied differently in

Canadian literature to describe parallel relationships in Canada aside from those of Indigenous-

Settlers. For instance, it is applied to relations between French and English Canadians; to

Canadians and US Americans; and later still to Canadian immigrants and Canadian-Canadians

(Atwood 1996:100-102).4 This mutual victimhood resulted in a Canadian mythology that

4 Mackey (1999) refers to older (i.e. English and French) Canadians and White Canadians as Canadian-Canadians.

borrows strongly from that of Indigenous peoples, who are considered sources of knowledge that

White-Settlers renounced when becoming civilized (Atwood 1996:103; Saul 2008:31). In his utterance, Ilija portrayed himself as one in the position of power, asking himself: what can “we” do to civilize and alleviate the suffering of Indigenous peoples? Stereotypes and perceptions like these can have adverse affects on Indigenous populations.

The Consequences

Health Care

The following are two cases that demonstrate the consequences of such stereotypes for

Indigenous publics when they are internalized by immigrants or Canadian-Canadians. In 2008,

45 year-old Brian Sinclair died in a Winnipeg Hospital’s Emergency waiting area after being ignored by hospital staff for 34 hours.5 Staff had stereotyped Sinclair as a drunk or homeless

Indigenous person, and assumed he did not require medical care. Three years earlier in 2005,

Annette Browne conducted a ethnographic research that studied nurses’ assumptions about First

Nations patients in an unnamed hospital in Western Canada (Browne 2005).

Browne (2005:74) found that nurses’ conceptualizations of culture contributed to reinforcing stereotypes about Indigenous peoples. Nurses were equating First Nations social problems with cultural characteristics like violence and alcohol abuse (Browne 2005:75).

Additionally, Browne identified the discourse of professional egalitarianism, whereby nurses aim to administer equal care to all patients regardless of special cultural circumstances. The differential treatment that nurses exhibited resulted in the dismissal of Indigenous social

5 CBC News Report, ”Brian Sinclair’s death ‘preventable’ but not homicide, says inquest report”, CBC News, December 12, 2014. < http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/brian-sinclair-s-death-preventable-but-not- homicide-says-inquest-report-1.2871025>

problems as “problems of the past” (Browne 2005:76), in turn contributing to the normalization of existing racial discourse (Mullings 2005:678). Furthermore, nurses expressed more popularized racial assumptions about First Nations, including the image of the “drunken Indian”, as well as the “freeloader” (Browne 2005:78), both belonging to a collection of deeply embedded negative stereotypes in the Canadian consciousness (Browne et al. 2005:21).

The Unist’ot’en

In 2009, a group of members from the Unist’ot’en First Nation blocked the construction of the Pacific Trails pipeline on their traditional territories.6 In addition to asserting sovereignty over their unceded territory, this action reflected their fears of contaminating the ecological niches on which they depend for food.7 Since 2009, the community has repeatedly escorted trespassing infrastructure and natural resource professionals from their territory. Following suspicions of surveillance, media reports had suggested that various government authorities were in the process of planning a raid to remove the Unist’ot’en cabin. In the past, confrontations between Indigenous peoples and state authorities have led to armed encounters, such as the Oka crisis of 1990.8

Proulx (2014) uses an open source data collection methodology to investigate government responses to Indigenous people’s assertions of sovereignty. Additionally, he analyzes the accompanying narratives in the reports produced by these government agencies. He

6 Betsy Trumpener, “RCMP planning mass arrests at pipeline protest camp, northern B.C chiefs fear”, CBC News, British Columbia, August 28, 2015. < http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/rcmp-planning-mass-arrests- at-pipeline-protest-camp-northern-b-c-chiefs-fear-1.3207717> 7 Dorothy Field, “An inside look at the Unist’ot’en camp”, Vancouver Observer, Culture, September 1, 2015. < http://www.vancouverobserver.com/culture/inside-look-unistoten-camp> 8 This was a land dispute between the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) community of Kanehsatà:ke and the Settler town of Oka. It led to an armed siege between Kanien’kehá:ka warriors and both the Sûreté du Québec (provincial police force) and the Canadian Armed Forces. This act of resistance is thought to have strongly influenced the Indigenous social movements of the following decades.

notes the increasingly extreme rhetoric that frames Indigenous protestors as ecological insurgents, extremists, and terrorists (Proulx 2014:87-88). This rhetoric is used to justify extensive surveillance and monitoring of these groups by the military and special law enforcement units (Proulx 2014:88). Proulx (2014:89) also discusses the involvement of intelligence agents specializing in national security, including the RCMPs Joint Intelligence

Group whose mandate is to collect intelligence specifically on Indigenous peoples. He attributes the existence of these initiatives to government fears of losing control over natural resource in the wake of numerous judicial precedents granting land rights to Indigenous peoples (Proulx

2014:84-88). Ultimately, these programs are deemed to be unjust since groups like the

Unist’ot’en merely wish to defend their land (Proulx 2014:93) and protect their environment.

One positive aspect to the Unis’to’en case has been a show of solidarity from non-

Indigenous publics through their presence on Unis’to’en territory to help protest. Is it possible for immigrants to be among these protestors, or for them to attend similar demonstrations in solidarity with Indigenous peoples? Do anthropologists have a responsibility in facilitating such solidarity to address this particular public issue?

The Anthropologist’s Role

While the focus of this chapter is stereotypes, the fundamental underlying public issue is the Canadian public’s ignorance concerning Indigenous peoples. John Ralston Saul (2008:21) considers the greatest shortfall of the Canadian multicultural experiment to be its failure to internalize its oldest foundational pillar of Indigenous peoples. As immigrants continually enter the Canadian context as new actors, will their role in Indigenous-Settler relations be dictated by the Canadian nationalist narrative? My findings in Chapter 2 address this particular issue by

situating Former-Yugoslav immigrants in the Greater Toronto Area in Indigenous-Settler discourses. The paradoxical elements of the Canadian nationalist narrative produce ruptures that carry the potential for solidarity with Indigenous peoples concerning the issues they face.

As a student of anthropology, I believe I have a responsibility to take a public stance on public issues, and to pursue active initiatives towards their resolution. My stance is in line with the era of “public anthropology,” characterized by a strive for anthropology’s relevance to public issues and public discourse (Rylko-Baur, Singer, and van Willigan 2006:185; McGranahan

2006:256). Perhaps the most appropriate initial step is to disseminate one’s research.

While I have considered several venues for publishing Chapter 2 of this thesis, I believe the most suitable to be the Journal of Canadian Studies. As an interdisciplinary journal, it aims to engage with scholarship concerning Canadian history, cultural, and society. Given that the

Journal of Canadian Studies has relatively few anthropological works, an opportunity arises to contribute a perspective on Canadian studies informed by anthropology. The article’s focus on immigrants in relation to both Canadians and Indigenous peoples would spark new conversations among scholars concerning the evolution of Canadian society. Its focus on Former-Yugoslav communities would also be an asset, as this immigrant community is understudied in Canada.

Additionally, the Journal of Canadian Studies seeks to disseminate research that does not align with the narrowly defined mandates of traditional journals. This unconventional research fits such a description, since its concerns with Indigeneity are explored primarily through engagement with Former-Yugoslav immigrants in the GTA.

Chapter 2:

Ruptures in Canada’s Nationalist Narrative:

Situating Toronto’s Former-Yugoslav Immigrants in the Indigenous-Settler Context.

“Why are we working so hard to please these natives? We colonized them. They lost the war” (emphasis added). These words belonged to a first generation Former-Yugoslav immigrant in Toronto. They were sent to me as a private message in response to a popular media article about Indigenous sovereignty that I had shared on a social media website. The comment perfectly illustrates how Indigenous peoples in Canada are racialized through stereotypes – in this case, that of the sauvage. Yet, the conditions of its utterance also reveal an interesting rupture in the nationalist narrative of Canadian identity. With this comment, my interlocutor identified himself as a Settler-colonist – an identity that could only have emerged through his self-positioning against the Indigenous Other. What is more, his comment also confirms the pressures for immigrants to integrate into the Canadian identity. As beneficiaries of multicultural ideology – that despite its apparent inclusiveness nonetheless displaces Indigenous peoples in

Canada – these immigrants directly or indirectly draw on the image of Indigenous peoples to define their racial and national identities as immigrants in Canada.

How then can we come to understand the ambivalent positionality of Former-Yugoslavs in

Indigenous-Settler relations? How do the historical particularities of their own displacement in the context of the Yugoslav civil war figure into their perceptions of Indigenous displacement?

These questions have inspired me to pursue a thesis project to research my own immigrant community of Former-Yugoslav expatriates in the City of Toronto’s metropolitan area, as well as their perspectives on Indigenous peoples.

Accordingly, this thesis seeks to situate Former-Yugoslav immigrants in the Greater

Toronto Area (GTA) of Canada in the context of Indigenous-Settler relations. It aims to challenge the binary dichotomies that form nationalist narratives in Canada by exposing two ruptures within it, created through the evolution of Canadian identity. These ruptures are: (1) the differential treatment of Indigenous peoples and immigrants under multiculturalist ideology; and

(2) the inconsistencies between multicultural inclusivity and the relational nature of Whiteness as a monolithic identifier of ethno-racial categorization in Canadian ethnic identity. Drawing primarily on ethnographic interviews with members of the Former-Yugoslav community in the

GTA, I argue that Indigenous peoples play a central role in the formation of Former-Yugoslav identity as immigrants by exposing the ruptures of the Canadian national narrative.

In the sections that follow, I first provide a review of the literature and concepts that inform my theoretical framework for this study. Next, I contextualize my Former-Yugoslav interlocutors as displaced peoples who have immigrated to Canada. In this section, I also outline my methodology, discussing its strengths and limitations. Finally, I examine the narratives expressed by my interlocutors, comparing them to those of Canadian nationalism to situate them in relation to Indigenous peoples. I end with a conclusion that proposes solidarity between

Former-Yugoslav immigrants and Indigenous peoples, along with propositions for further research.

Literature Review and Concepts

This research analyzes the positionality of immigrants in Indigenous-Settler discourses through the lens of Former-Yugoslav immigrants based in the GTA. In so doing, it brings together and contributes to the anthropological scholarship on immigrants in Settler-colonial

contexts and Canadian studies, as well as to literature on decolonization in Canada, and critical

Indigenous theory from the United States.

The writings of Indigenous scholars on decolonization and critical Indigenous studies/theory reflect an interest in Indigenous-Settler relations. They examine the fraught questions of Indigenous sovereignty and identity, and critique colonial imperialism in an attempt to foreground Indigenous perspectives that have long been disregarded in academia (Yellowhorn

2006:207; Kovach 2009:31; Byrd 2011). In critiquing the rhetorical uses of the term

‘decolonization’ that reduce it to a literary metaphor, Tuck and Yang (2012:2-3, 7) define it as a process through which the postcolonial subject seizes imperial wealth from colonial Settlers through means of re-settlement and re-invasion. In Canada, decolonization involves the supplanting of racist institutions and legislation like the Indian Act with Indigenous sovereign law, which may include Indigenous ways of maintaining relatedness with ‘all of their relations’

(Browne 2005;Amadahy and Lawrence 2008:117; Palmater 2011; Simpson 2014). Currently,

Canadian White-Settler nationalism maintains the displacement and colonization of Indigenous peoples (Mackey 1999: Simpson 2014). Questions remain, however, as to where racialized immigrants are situated in relation to decolonization, given that Canada’s inhabitants are largely composed of non-Indigenous immigrant minorities.

Some variation exists on the question of immigrants in the literature concerning

Indigenous sovereignty. In the US literature on critical Indigenous theory, Chickasaw academic

Jodi Byrd (2011:xix) argues that there exists a cacophony of competing struggles for hegemony in North America rather than the traditional Indigenous-Settler dichotomy. Instead, many authors adopt a pyramidal view of Indigenous-Settler-immigrant power dynamics, whereby non-White racialized Settlers are enticed into aligning with the liberal Settler state (Saranillio 2013:282).

This theoretical position is consistent with the work of Amadahy and Lawrence (2008:130) in their questioning the role of racialized Black peoples in the vision for Indigenous sovereignty in

Canada and the US. They argue that the competitive way in which Black and Indigenous peoples form their identities in relation to White-Settlers results in their further racialization of one another. To explain such anomalies in Indigenous-Settler relations from the perspective of decolonial literature in Canada, Tuck and Yang (2012:6-7) suggest that the term ‘immigrant’ is reserved only for those who are beholden to Indigenous laws, while the term ‘Settler’ describes those who supplant these laws and epistemologies with their own. In this model, the majority of foreign-born Canadians are Settlers rather than immigrants, as they uphold and reinforce the dominant Settler-colonial power structures in Canada.

Few studies in the literature of decolonization and Indigenous perspectives directly explore how immigrants relate to Indigenous peoples in North America. In his investigation of the relations between Asian Settlers and Indigenous Hawaiians, Dean Saranillio addresses the significance of racial competition in determining how both groups view themselves vis-à-vis

White-Settlers (Saranillio 2013). Such “competitive racism”9 may be seen as systemic strategies that are encouraged by colonial multicultural systems to ensure the marginalization of both groups (Byrd 2011:12; Mullings 2005:677). Yet more importantly, the complex relationship between colonial Settlers, immigrants, and Indigenous peoples as addressed by these works invite us to question the dichotomous hierarchies and oppositional binaries that dominate scholarly work on Indigenous peoples (Takezawa 2006; Saranillio 2013:292; Shanklin

2013:674). With its attentiveness to the first-hand accounts and experiences of people who are racialized and marginalized, anthropology provides us with the tools to expose and problematize

9 Bowser (1995) introduces this term in a discussion of racial scapegoating by immigrants in the context of globalization, and the neoliberalization of migrant workforces.

the essentializing effect of such binary models of thinking. This thesis therefore seeks to complicate the Indigenous-Settler and pyramidal binary models by exploring the central position of Indigenous people in shaping how former Yugoslav immigrants relate to White-Settlers and their racial ideologies.

For the purposes of this study, it is necessary to rethink the meanings of race and racialization as concepts of social relatedness. The traditional Eurocentric concept of race, historically developed in anthropology and science by figures such as Blumenbach, Cuvier, de

Gobineau, and Coon, relied on pseudo-scientific systems for classifying humans based on a false correlation between breed and skin colour. Although the concept is no longer accepted in the biological sciences, it has survived in some form, as an internalized function of the dominant

North American Settler cultures.

As “a folk concept” of social differentiation (Shanklin 1998), race has evolved to rely on characteristics beyond skin colour, such as language, ethnicity, religious background, and economic capital (Silverstein 2005:364). Through a process of racialization, these characteristics are essentialized and naturalized to index "fluid categories of difference into fixed species of otherness” (Silverstein 2005:364). Complicating the traditionally binary dichotomy of race is of great import. Allowing for the pluralism of a layered cacophony (Byrd 2011) better represents the relational realities of diverse and colonized lands (Takezawa 2005; Pierre 2008).

Complicating the binary is especially significant for this study as it best explains the racialization of Former-Yugoslav immigrants in relation to Indigenous peoples and Canadian Settlers.

To North American publics, race remains centred around the normative category of

Whiteness,10 around which all other categories of race are constructed (Day 1998:43; Hirschman and Panther-Yates 2008:50-52; Mullings 2005672-673; Pickering 2004:91; Spencer 2006:20). In turn, Whiteness is defined not by static criteria, but rather through the exclusion of the

Indigenous Other through their denial of access to Whiteness (Day 1998:43). For example,

Indigenous peoples in Canada are racialized through a variety of stereotypes that relate to their inferiority (or insignificance) to the dominant White-Settler culture (see Atwood 1996; Browne

2005; King 2012; Proulx 2014). Stereotypes like these emerged during the formation of a

Canadian nationalist identity in the mid-1800s based on the ostensible superiority of Northern

(European) races, despite relatively good relations with Indigenous peoples prior to the period of

Confederation (Mackey 1999:41-45). The nationalist identity based in Northern-Whiteness functions as a marker of ethnicity for what Mackey (1999:16) refers to as Canadian-Canadians.

Bing normalized as ‘ordinary’, these Canadians are contrasted with those who are Othered and considered ‘multicultural’ (Mackey 1999:16).

Canadian multiculturalism is rooted in the colonization of the Northwestern frontier of

North America (and dispossession of Indigenous land) via large scale immigration (Day

1998:44). While Canadian immigration policy was largely based on providing land to Whites only (Amadahy and Lawrence 2008:114), an increasing number of these immigrants did not meet the racial criteria of Northern-Whiteness. The large influx of Othered immigrants was likened to the threat of an impending flood (Day 1998:51). A functional ethno-racial hierarchy of desirable Others was created to organize new immigrants, where Anglo-Saxons assumed a

10 It is important to note that I am referring to the Canadian popular concept of Whiteness, which is negotiated using the factors beyond skin colour (see above).

position of power at the top – and even the French assumed fifth place – followed further down by Eastern and Southern Europeans (Woodsworth 1972; Day 1998:52; Winland 2007).

Following WWII, Canada developed a reliance on immigrant populations to fulfill state needs. In 1971, the government of Canada enacted the official policy of multiculturalism

(Amadahy and Lawrence 2008:114). The emergence of this ‘mosaic’ model of Canadian multiculturalism resulted from a unique strategy in nation-building devised to solve the immigrant problem – namely the Otherness of immigrants, as depicted in the flood analogy (Day

1998:55). The strategy involved the integration of immigrants (as opposed to assimilation) into a new, yet vague and dynamic Canadian identity (Day 1998:57). Immigrants paradoxically remained Othered while simultaneously becoming Canadian. From the perspective of Canadian-

Canadians, the lack of a clear definition of who is Canadian gave rise to various forms of nativism and racism (Day 1998:61), resulting in the adherence to Northern-Whiteness as a form of Canadian ethnic identity (Mackey 1999).

Colourblind racism (Mullings 2005) is one such form of nativism and racism that is particularly relevant to the Canadian context, but has also been internalized by anthropology since Boas’ death (Shanklin 1998:670). Seemingly adopting the egalitarian values of multiculturalism, this subtle form of racism denies the existence of racism in its social and institutionalized forms, disproportionately disadvantaging the very groups most affected by racism. Indigenous peoples in North America are especially disadvantaged, whose claims to sovereignty are continually undermined by the colourblind, egalitarian rhetoric underlying liberal multiculturalism (Byrd 2011:xix; Saranillio 2013:281). Ultimately, multiculturalism is a state tool used to maintain power and control over Canada’s territories.

Multicultural policy has further alienated Indigenous peoples by virtue of its effect on immigrants in Canada who, as beneficiaries of Canadian policy, make claims on the state in the name of antiracism and multiculturalism (Amadahy and Lawrence 2008:115). The result is the reduction of Indigenous peoples to being another tile in the cultural mosaic (Amadahy and

Lawrence 2008:115). Furthermore, immigrant communities who are drawn to multiculturalism are also the ones who are defining the terms of the struggle with the state, regardless of their level of knowledge concerning Indigenous peoples in Canada (Amadahy and Lawrence

2008:115-116). This point illustrates especially well the power that immigrants have in Canada, as well as the importance of understanding their positionality in Indigenous-Settler discourse – including my Former-Yugoslav interlocutors.

Despite the volume of anthropological work on Former-Yugoslavs, the vast majority explore the life, politics, war, and postsocialism in the Former Yugoslav republics (Filipović

1982; Halpern and Kideckel 2000; Hudson and Bowman 2012: Gorup 2013; Nettlefield 2010;

Ziemer 2012). Anthropological studies concerning Former-Yugoslav immigrant communities are relatively limited. One exception is Daphne Winland’s (2007) monograph on Toronto’s Croatian diaspora,11 which investigates the generational differences in Croat perceptions of the newly independent state of Croatia. However, Winland does not explore the positionality of Croats in

Indigenous-Settler discourse.

While some ethnographic works on Former-Yugoslav immigrants focuses more on the politics of civil war (Dauphinee 2013), others do investigate more diverse topics. These include exploring the racialization of Muslim Bosniak women in Chicago (Croegaert 2015), and the

11 It is important to note that the term diaspora has multiple meanings. In its use here, and for the purposes of this paper, it refers not to a relationship with a geographic location, but to one’s practiced relationship with homeland (Habib 2004:10).

transition of Bosnians to postcolonial neoliberal life in Chicago (Croegaert 2011). It is clear that a more systematic undertaking of studies is necessary to better understand these communities in

North America. This thesis addresses the gap in literature on Former-Yugoslav immigrants in

Canada by investigating the GTA community’s positionality in Indigenous-Settler discourse.

Furthermore, this research offers an insight into their relationship with local Indigenous peoples of both of past and present, including those who currently reside in the GTA – namely the

Mississauga, other Ojibwe, Haudenosaunee, Métis, Inuit, and Wendat peoples.

Context and Methods

The collapse of the Socialist Federal Republic of Jugoslavija (SFRJ) was the primary reason many of my interlocutors immigrated to Canada. Its collapse was caused by the armed conflict and civil war related to a series of economic and political factors at the national and international level. The US National Securities Decisions Directive 133 (UNSDD 113) of 1984 reveals that the United States was actively pursuing a policy encouraging the supplanting the socialist economic model in SFRJ with a neoliberal one. US involvement continued in 1990 with the implementation of the Foreign Appropriations Act (FAA). Section 599A of the FAA incentivized the secession of any Yugoslav Republic with US aid, provided primarily to ultranationalist parties under the guise of funding democracy (see Parenti 2000). These initiatives were supported by members of the European Economic Community (EEC; predecessor to the

European Union), most notably Germany, through early recognition of declarations of independence by Former-Yugoslav states, as well as economic and resource advances in the region (see Caplan 2005 and Radeljić 2012). In other words, the collapse that led to civil war in

SFRJ and the ensuing displacement of its citizens was inextricably linked to the US imperialist

agenda in the post-Cold War era that combined colonialism with neoliberalism. Together with other Western European powers, Canada, as a NATO member, was implicated in such transnational developments that resulted in mass migration.

This research focuses on the perspectives and experiences of the Former-Yugoslav12 expatriates in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), specifically those who migrated to Canada following the 1990s conflicts.13 Immigrants constitute a significant portion of the population in southern Ontario. Their population in the City of Toronto is roughly 1.2 million, 46% of which were foreign born and a 1.7% of which were non-permanent residents, according to the latest census in 2011 (Statistics Canada 2012).14 Toronto’s metropolitan area has also been a popular destination for many former Yugoslav migrants. Of those in the City of Toronto, about 19,090 are from the linguistically Serbo-Croatian territories of Former-Yugoslavia. 37,730 identify as ethnic Yugoslavs, Serbians, Croatians, Bosnians, or Montenegrins, and 27,530 speak a variant of

Serbo-Croatian (Statistics Canada 2013).15

Over a period of three months in the summer of 2016, I conducted semi-structured interviews with 12 Former-Yugoslav interlocutors in the language of their choice (English or

Serbo-Croatian).16 The interlocutors were recruited via my own networks in the Former-

12 For the purposes of this project, “Yugoslav” will refer to native speakers of linguistic Serbo-Croatian, and so will exclude Slovenes and Macedonians unless otherwise specified. The reason for this is that as a Yugoslav expatriate myself, I have an intimate understanding of social practices and fluency in Serbo-Croatian which will serve me well in the temporal limitations of this relatively short research project. Despite the many similarities, my understanding of Slovene and Macedonian social practices and languages is limited, which would limit my access to these publics. 13 These immigrants joined other communities in Toronto who immigrated from the same region previously, as early as the turn of the 20th century. (Ruprecht 2011; Winland 2007). 14 More recent census data was not available at the time of writing this thesis due to the previous administration of the Canadian Federal government having discontinued the National Household Survey. Despite its recent reinstatement, the resulting data will not be available for use until 2017. 15 As a self-declared statistical category, “Yugoslav” here may also include Slovene and Macedonian speakers. 16 The term, “Serbo-Croatian” represents the languages known as Serbian, Bosnian, Croatian, and sometimes Montenegrin. My choice of this term is based on the linguistic categorization of these languages as Serbo-Croatian, and not necessarily on political divisions. Herein, any use of literal words in this language will be noted in parentheses with the abbreviation “SBC”, for Serbian, Bosnian, and Croatian.

Yugoslav expatriate communities of the GTA, and consisted of two main groups: (1) those who migrated from Former-Yugoslavia as adults during the civil war in the 1990s and; (2) their children (of adult age) who were born and/or grew up in Canada. The first group involved three men and three women whose ages ranged between 50 and 65. In the second group, there were four male Yugoslav-born interlocutors between the ages of 20 and 23, and two Canadian-born interlocutors (a woman and a man) aged 26 and 28 respectively. Coming from similar sociocultural and familial background, all of my interlocutors are upper-middle class, white-collar workers with postsecondary degrees. They also had predominantly Serbian origins with some being mixed Croatians – with the exception of one interlocutor who is of Bosniak (Bosnian

Muslim) origin. However, this latter interlocutor (along with four others), identified as Yugoslav.

I was able to identify the ethnic origins of those who identified as Yugoslav on the basis of their names, surnames, and interview data. Yet, their self-identification is important to note, as it provides an insight into their political and nationalist affiliations.

The commonality of language, class, immigration experience, and identification of my interlocutors provides a relatively coherent ground upon which to identify the major factors in shaping their knowledge and understanding of Indigenous peoples in Canada. Yet, such a generalization is not applicable to all immigrants from Former-Yugoslavia in Canada.17 Instead, the generalization I have made reflects a form of “situated knowledge” (Haraway 1988), whereby I have determined a common positionality of my interlocutors in relation to the research question. The interviews took place primarily in the interlocutors’ homes and coffee shops, having been audio-recorded and later transcribed for analysis.

17 The predominant denominations being Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Bosniak, and Montenegrin. Some examples of regional identities include Dalmatian, Slavonian, Herzegovian, Vojvodinian, and so on.

While this study is limited in scope to interview data, its nature remains ethnographic.

This is justified in following Geertz’s position on ethnography being a theoretical approach seeking to describe the deeper meanings that are implied in microscopic behaviours, known as

“thick description” (Geertz 1973: 311-312). Analysis constitutes the ethnographer’s constructions of the actors’ constructions of how they interpret the world (Geertz 1973: 314).

The lack of more comprehensive ethnographic methodological repertoire utilizing primarily participant observation is offset by my membership in the Former-Yugoslav community of the GTA. I was able to establish a trusting relationship with interlocutors easily in the very limited duration of the field research. Being a member of the community also served as a research advantage as a speaker of Serbo-Croatian: I already adhere to the metacommunicative norms required for meaningful analysis with this community, allowing me to more easily identify deviations from the norm (Briggs 1986:106) and any syntactics used by the participant

(Ewing 2016:93) allowing for the identification ambivalence in the narrative (Ewing 2016:93-

94).

There were also limitations caused by relying primarily on interview data. As interviews are unique speech events in certain cultures, the interviewer inevitably has some effect on the participant (Briggs 1986). However, it would not be correct to view this as contamination of data, but rather as a unique perspective given the social context (Emerson:1995). In addition to the formal recorded interviews, I also utilized the information gathered from extensive field notes during candid conversation that took place prior to and following the formal recorded portion of each interview. My extra-interview data allowed for a contrast to the pressures of interview formality, and created a distinct conversation that was much more candid when juxtaposed with the formal interview.

In analyzing my data, I primarily performed a comparative narrative analysis to juxtapose the narratives Former-Yugoslav with those of the official Canadian narrative, and with

Indigenous scholarly perspectives. Narrative analysis is the most appropriate method for situating knowledge(s) within their respective contexts (see Haraway 1988). The data collected has been analyzed in order to make within-case generalizations, which are then situated in their greater context of Indigenous-Settler relations for use by Indigenous communities in their pursuit of sovereignty.

Analysis and Findings

Former-Yugoslavs immigrants in the GTA are situated within two ruptures of the

Canadian nationalist narrative – paradoxical realms of multiple co-occurring imaginaries. As displaced peoples, they are privileged beneficiaries of the Canadian state while simultaneously denied access to the Whiteness of the Canadian-Canadian ethnic identity.

These two ruptures are exposed by the relational positionality of Indigenous peoples to

Former-Yugoslavs; in other words, Indigenous peoples play a central role in the identity of the

GTA’s Former-Yugoslav immigrants. The former’s existence shatters the illusion of inclusivity in the multiculturalist narrative by (1) exposing the injustices acted upon Indigenous peoples by the Canadian state, which maintains its marginalization of these communities via multiculturalism; and (2) exposing the relational nature of Whiteness by challenging it as a monolithic identifier of ethno-racial categorization in favour pluralistic forms of identity.

To demonstrate these findings, I will first explore how my interlocutors racialize North

American Indigenous peoples through perceptions constructed partly in Former-Yugoslavia and partly in Canada. My interlocutors’ perceptions reveal how an understanding of Indigenous

discourse affects immigrants’ relationship with Canada. Next, I will investigate the ways in which constructions of race are negotiated by Former-Yugoslav immigrants based on interactions with Canadian-Canadians and Indigenous peoples, paying particular focus to the relational nature of ethnicity and nationalism. Finally, I will conclude with a discussion on the positionality of Former-Yugoslavs in Indigenous-Settler discourse, including the potential for solidarity with Indigenous peoples.

Awareness of the Indigenous and Acts of Stereotyping

A significant factor that has shaped the first impressions of my interlocutors on

Indigenous peoples was their experiences in and memories of the dominant forms of representation in SFRJ. The Serbo-Croatian term “Indijanci” refers to all Indigenous peoples of the Americas. This term shares its etymology with the terms used to describe the inhabitants of

India (“Indijci” or “Hindusi”), all of which are foreign loanwords to Serbo-Croatian.

Colloquially, “Indijanci” is used for a variety of slang localisms with both negative and positive connotations.18

The term’s use still carries through various mediums, including film. In addition to the popularity of ‘Spaghetti Western’ films,19 the Red Western genre was produced by European countries like Germany and SFRJ. It sought to cast North American Indigenous peoples as protagonists in contrast to Spaghetti Westerns. Yugoslav actor Gojko Mitić was renowned for his stereotyped roles in these films, often depicting him as the Noble Savage. My Group 1

18 The most common usage is similar to the pejorative use of “Neanderthal” or “Mongoloid” in both English and Serbo-Croatian as personal insults of intelligence. A wide variety of slang uses for the term “Indijanci” can be found on Serbia’s equivalent to the Urban Dictionary website, Vukajlija. ; 19 Some examples of these film include: “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly,” “A Fistful of Dollars,” and “Once Upon A Time in the West.”

interlocutors interacted with these media, which had a memorable impact on their childhoods.

Here, we see the emergence of racialization that characterizes Indigenous peoples as either good or bad, following a mode of stereotyping typical in the United States (Atwood 1996).

Further racialization manifested via another ubiquitous medium in the SFRJ that my interlocutors indulged in concerning North American Indigenous peoples: comic strips. Prior to my interview with interlocutors Bojan and Adrijana at their home in Toronto, Bojan pulled me aside to show me an example of the comic strips that he and his friends read together as children.

Bojan is a civil engineer from Sarajevo, and his wife, Adrijana, is a project manager (both born in 1962; arrived in Canada, 1991). The comic he showed me was an issue of “Lunov Magnus

Strip,” a series published in Novi Sad that featured the adventures of its Cowboy protagonists in their often hostile encounters with Indigenous people on the shores of Lake Ontario.

Undoubtedly these materials captured the imagination of many children in SFRJ, where North

American Indigenous people were simultaneously demonized and romanticized. Such dichotomous stereotyping may be the most prevalent in North America, captured by the image of

King’s Dead Indian (King 2012).

Such stereotyping was also highly gendered, as evident in the retelling of Adrijana’s childhood memories. Adrijana recalls that when she played ‘Cowboys and Indians’ as a child with her friends, boys always wanted to be the Cowboys since they had guns. This, she added, was perhaps to be expected from the male machismo culture of the Balkan region, as confirmed by the impressions of her husband Bojan. Although girls had to play the ‘Indians’ by default, she admittedly preferred that role, due to its less aggressive and competitive nature as embodied by the stereotype of the Noble Savage. Her preference, nevertheless, was reflective of gendered divisions of the conqueror and conquered, as common in national and colonial discourses of

militarism (McClintock 1995; Enloe 2007). It is also reminiscent of the mode of stereotyping found in Canadian literature, following the victor-victim dichotomy (Atwood 1996).

My interlocutors did not directly discuss the racial status of Indigenous people in Canada in relation to themselves. Their silence on this topic was itself revealing of their racial perception of Indigenous peoples as being a racialized ‘Other’ to Whiteness. I understood their silence to demonstrate the redundancy of stating the obvious: that Indigenous peoples are racially considered to be the ‘Other’ in relation to Europeans like Former-Yugoslavs. My understanding of the metacommunicative norms of Former-Yugoslavs enabled me to make such an insight.

While usually open and unreserved in discussing their stances on particular issues,

Former-Yugoslavs do also recede conversationally from topics of great controversy. When discussing Indigenous peoples, my interlocutors generally avoided the use of the term Indijanac, often opting for the more politically correct “Native” or other alternatives (in the Canadian context, anyways). However, in some cases the interlocutor would revert to the term Indijanac following the recorded portion of the interview. This syntactic (Ewing 2016) demonstrates interlocutor sensitivity to the political correctness associated with colourblind racial theory and

Canadian multiculturalism, where my interlocutors opted to avoid racializing and offending

Indigenous peoples in a public conversation, but reverted to their internalized perceptions in private conversation. Here, racialization through the expression of internalized stereotypes plays a relational role in the forging of identity for my interlocutors. They position Indigenous peoples as the romanticized ‘Other’ in relation to their self-perceived normativity (Day 1998; Mackey

1999; Day and Sadik 2002). Yet, these internalized perceptions are expressed as assumptions, whereas the interlocutors’ awareness of the injustices that Indigenous face provokes understanding and empathy – ideal qualities for relationship-building.

To my surprise, all of my interlocutors from Group 1 were able to name several

Indigenous groups from North America, including groups in Canada ranging from the

Mississaugas to the Haida. Through our conversations they demonstrated awareness of the systematic oppression which Indigenous people in Canada have faced historically, such as genocide, their marginalization to reserves, and the realities of the residential school system.

Their awareness was cultivated through numerous means during their stay in Canada. Many interlocutors took (sometimes multiple) trips across the country and the province, and had encountered plaques, museums, cultural sites, and Indigenous people.

They were also avid readers on the topic, having read authors from Joseph Boyden to

Thomas King. Yet, their exposure to popular media sources in their home countries and in

Canada such as the ones described above limited the depth of their knowledge on Indigenous peoples, often accompanied by romanticized stereotypes. Despite this racialization, their extensive knowledge concerning Indigenous discourse is important to note, as it serves not only as a marker of empathy towards Indigenous struggles, but also as one of suspicion towards the

Canadian state for its injustices.

Dragan, a senior IT manager (born in Sarajevo,1963; arrived in Canada, 1993), explained that he always sides with Indigenous peoples in their conflicts with Canadian authorities. Despite his positive encounters himself with the latter, he became suspicious of them based on their treatment of Indigenous peoples. The extensive awareness of the persecution that Indigenous peoples face(d) from the Canadian state leads my interlocutors to reconsider their associations with Canada, impacting their identities as immigrants in Canada. Representing the first rupture in the Canadian nationalist narrative, the Indigenous positionality as dispossessed people shatters the illusion of Canadian inclusivity as Former-Yugoslav immigrants have experienced it.

Nationalism and Racialization

When I asked Adrijana whether she feels Canadian, she responded, “Well, I feel like I’m at home here.” When pressed on this question further, she did not offer affirmation of feeling

Canadian. Instead, she elaborated that she differentiates herself from her coworkers who descend from Loyalists of the American Revolutionary War. To situate my interlocutors in the

Indigenous-Settler context, we must now focus on the Settler by exploring the distinction between what Mackey (1999:16) calls ‘ordinary’ Canadians and ‘multicultural’ Canadians.

This distinction between what Prime Minister Stephen Harper once controversially called new and old stock Canadians was a recurring theme throughout my discussions with interlocutors. The distinction is one that conflates imaginaries of ethnic and racial identities, paradoxically blurring the lines between the two. The confusion is rooted in the complexities of

Canadian-Canadian identity, which emerged as a result of the Canadian nationalist movement of the 1800s in pursuit of sovereignty from Britain (Mackey 1999:41-45). The nationalist movement was based in the (then popular) academic traditions Northern European/White racial superiority (Mackey 1999:41-45), itself constructed in relation to ‘Savage Others’ like

Indigenous peoples (Day 1998:43). The movement ultimately resulted in the demarcation of a

Canadian ethnic identity based on these notions.

The 19th century saw a large influx of ‘Othered’ immigrants who did not meet the criteria of Canadian Whiteness. The Canadian state became increasingly dependent upon these immigrants to maintain its power and control over its territories and Indigenous peoples. Canada officially enacted the policy of multiculturalism as a strategy to impose unity on a diverse population (Day 1998:55; Amadahy and Lawrence 2008:114). The change redefined Canadian

national identity to be vague so as to integrate the diversity of immigrants without assimilating them (Day; 1998:57). However, the lack of a clear definition of who is Canadian gave rise to various forms of nativism and racism (Day; 1998:61), resulting in the adherence to Northern-

Whiteness as a form of Canadian ethnic identity (Mackey 1999), hidden beneath the veil of racially colourblind ideology. On the other hand, immigrants paradoxically remained Othered while simultaneously becoming Canadian (Day 1998:57). This ambivalence represents the second rupture in the Canadian national narrative – or perhaps it is more adequate to refer to this rupture as the realm between the two contradictory Canadian narratives.

My interlocutors from Group 1 consistently defined themselves as “White”, which reflects the standard perspective of the community’s view of self-race (Winland 2007). The

Former-Yugoslav construction of Whiteness is still largely based in traditional academic definitions of normative race, creating an ambivalence with Canadian Whiteness. Identification with my interlocutors’ form of “Whiteness” was traceable in their use of personal pronouns when referencing White peoples (SBC: “Bijelci” or “Belci”) other than themselves. In these instances, the pronouns “I” or “we” were used to signify a common identity with the historic White Settler- colonists of British and French origin in Canada – today’s Canadian-Canadians. Yet the ambivalence of Whiteness was not self-evident to these individuals. When asked explicitly whether she considers Former-Yugoslavs to be White, real estate agent named Samira (born in

Tuzla, 1957; arrived in Canada, 1993) responded as follows:

We consider ourselves White. But I have heard more than once that maybe we are not.

There is a suspicion about whether we are White. (Laughter.) Only if it were clear to me

exactly how – or, it’s that explanation of who is Caucasian, that those are actually Nordic

peoples- or I don’t know. I don’t even know what the definition is. But you are definitely

suspicious (Laughter). You are totally suspicious (Laughter). I’m still passable because of

[the blue colour of] my eyes and such, you know.

Samira implicated me because of my dark features, which likely would have prompted

Carleton Coon (1939, 1963, 1965) to classify me as a swarthy European, a classification fairly consistent with my own experiences in Canada. I have often been labeled as “Eastern/Southern

European” but not “White” by Canadian-Canadians in contrast to the inclusion of Western and

Northern Europeans as White. People of colour, on the other hand, have consistently insisted that

I am White.20 Similarly, Adrijana explained, “I have met people from India who simply have a different perception of White people than what is actually true. They think that that everyone is

English, and that we are all English [as White people]. That all of us were conquering the world.

(Laughter.)”

The relational racialization that my interlocutors and I experience is rooted in a denial of

Whiteness (Day 1998:43) to Former-Yugoslavs, and so of ethnic Canadianness.21 Yet, the racialization remains subtle since it does not evoke an entirely new racial category, as is the case for Bosnian Muslims in Chicago who are racialized based on their religious attire in the context of a broader Muslim and its stereotypes (Croegaert 2015). Toronto’s Croats have been documented by Winland (2007:38-39) to experience varying and evolving degrees of racialization by Canadian-Canadians based on which decade saw their presence in Canada.

Carranza (In Press) refers to the above phenomena as experiencing ‘differential respect’ based on

20 I would like to add that my own experiences here are likely not representative of the majority of Former- Yugoslavs, as even in the Balkans I have been mistaken for an Arabic man, described as Turkish-looking, and told I look like a foreigner (despite sounding like a local). 21 It is possible that this denial of ethnic Canadianness is reinforced by self-imposed Former-Yugoslav classifications of ethnicity. However, these are less relevant in the group’s positionality in Indigenous-Settler discourse.

the ‘transpositional ciphers’ imposed on racialized peoples. Individuals embody different identities as imposed upon them by actors in their social context.

My interlocutors from Group 2 share the experiences of subtle racialization with Group 1 interlocutors, although the former have a better understanding of the racial ambiguity of

Whiteness. Marko, a software developer (born in 1986; arrived in Canada, 1992) explained that he makes claim to Whiteness based on his skin colour, distinguishing the ethnic Canadian claim to Whiteness based on “cultural” factors. Interestingly, Marko further distinguishes between two types of Canadian-Canadians: (1) rural “hick” Canadians; and (2) wealthy “old money”

Canadians in urban areas. Marko’s observation perhaps reflects the ever-evolving nature of the multicultural Canadian identity (Day 1998:57). The possibility exists that rural populations of

Canadian-Canadians have more strongly maintained their ethnic narratives of Whiteness, while those living in metropolitan areas have adapted to and adopted the multicultural narrative of

Canadian identity.

I have established the understanding that the relational identity narratives between

Former-Yugoslavs and Canadian-Canadians occupy a paradoxical realm of multiple co- occurring imaginaries. Next, I will discuss how Indigenous peoples play a central role in the formation of the Former-Yugoslav identity in the GTA and Canada. Former-Yugoslav relations with Indigenous peoples, while not always direct, have an ambiguous nature as illustrated by the notions of differential respect and relational circumstances discussed above. Yet, there are cases of direct interaction. Adrijana shared an anecdote with me in which her elderly parents, who got lost on a road trip north of Toronto, encountered a group of Indigenous people who initially froze and watched the couple angrily during the encounter, “until [my parents] began to try to speak to

them. When these people realized that they weren’t English, then they showed them everything, where the road is (deep laughter) [and they] turned away.”

Adrijana’s anecdote illuminates the centrality of Indigenous peoples in the exposure of the second rupture in the Canadian nationalist narrative. The rupture is precisely the realm in which new actors to the Indigenous-Settler context are situated, including Former-Yugoslav immigrants. Indigenous peoples in Canada are positioned as the opposing racialized Other to

White-Settlers (Day 1998:43). In this role, their acts of identification and subsequent re- identification of Adrijana’s parents disagrees with the problematic nature of Whitness as an ethnic and racial identifier. Conversely, the racialization of Former-Yugoslavs by Canadian-

Canadians constitutes a denial of access to Whiteness, maintaining the dichotomous monolithic nature (Takezawa 2005; Pierre 2008; Byrd 2011) of racialization in Canada, hidden beneath the veil of racial colourblind ideology. Perhaps then, this encounter calls for the decolonization of

Whiteness altogether, and the adoption of more pluralistic forms of identity for immigrants in

Canada like Former-Yugoslavs. Such an approach has the strong potential of repositioning

Former-Yugoslav immigrants in solidarity with Indigenous peoples in Canada, but would require acknowledgement of the complexity of nationalist narratives and their ruptures by all actors.

Situating Former-Yugoslav Immigrants

This thesis offers an insight into the complexity of situating immigrants in the existing power relations between Indigenous populations and the White-Settlers in Canada. The insights above concerning the ideological realm of representation serve to contrast the positionality of

Former-Yugoslav immigrants in the GTA with Canadian-Canadians. Yet, my interlocutors are also beneficiaries of the Canadian state, and thus in a position of power in relation to Indigenous

peoples. By exploring the material conditions of their migration, I will demonstrate that Former-

Yugoslavs simultaneous occupy the roles of colonizer and colonized in the Canadian context.

All of my interlocutors who experienced adult life in the Former-Yugoslav republic(s)

(Group 1) left for Canada because they had personally experienced some form of marginalization or adversity (e.g. economic, ethnic, legal) during the 1990s during or just prior to the Yugoslav civil war. Adrijana and her husband Bojan explained their departures a “force of circumstance.”

They all became displaced peoples through the rise of nationalism its establishment of geographic and social borders like racialization. Some of my interlocutors experienced violence personally, or became disenfranchised by the state. Filip survived the entire duration of the Siege of Sarajevo, and was forced to live without any official documentation for five years following the civil war. He described feeling “like the last [rung on a ladder] (lit. the last hole on a flute). In other words, you feel like no one and nothing. You have nothing, not an identification card, nor a driver’s license. Everything was somehow done illegally.”

I am not suggesting the suffering and dispossession that Indigenous peoples experienced is comparable to that of Former-Yugoslavs, as they occurred through vastly different means and histories. However, their dynamic is further complicated by the notion that Former-Yugoslavs immigrants in Canada are now the beneficiaries of the very borders that were created to dispossess and marginalize Indigenous peoples. Filip explained that he received official documents within a month of arriving to Canada. “I can’t describe to anyone what that meant to me, when I received my first ID in a state in which I had no born [relatives] … in which I had just arrived.”

While it is true that Former-Yugoslavs are victims of imperial colonialism via the systematic dismantlement of the SFRJ, it is also true that this community assumes positions of

privilege in Canadian society. As Samira put it, “I think that people came here with their own will, after all. Regardless of how things turned out, you still had choices, the majority [of people] could choose.” This perhaps qualifies Former-Yugoslav immigrants in Canada as a special kind of Settler (Tuck and Yang 2012) – one who (1) has experienced adversity through marginalization, and so has the potential to empathize and relate to Indigenous causes and perspectives; but (2) one who also experiences gratitude for benefitting from the Settler-colonial system which simultaneously oppresses Indigenous peoples via the pyramidal alignment of new immigrants with the Settler State (Saranillio 2013). While this ambivalence is not irreconcilable, it demonstrates the inadequacy of binary dichotomies for Indigenous-Settler relations. Therefore,

Former-Yugoslavs are best situated as privileged Settlers in the Indigenous-Settler context, who have the potential to either maintain the mechanisms through which Indigenous people are marginalized, or to act in solidarity with them in efforts of decolonization by becoming immigrants beholden to Indigenous law (Tuck and Yang 2012).

On Solidarity

Stefan: If I may ask, which ethnic group do you belong to? Bojan: What are the ethnic groups, what are the options? Stefan: Whatever you would like the options to be.” (Laughter.) Bojan: It’s no joke. I had an uncle in Belgrade who on the first census following the Second World War, declared himself an Indijanac. No joke. Because he wanted to be against the system, and so declared himself an Indijanac. And it forced them to write in Indijanac.

It was a beautiful, bright, and sunny day at Queen’s Park in Toronto when I attended the

Mass Blanket Exercise, which is designed to use human participants to recreate the colonization

of Turtle Island (North America). As I approached the Park, I felt conflicted by the sight of several members of Indigenous communities gathering to chat directly beneath an elevated black statue of Sir John A. MacDonald. I realized the sight could be interpreted as one of triumph, where the oppressed members of marginalized communities can now enjoy some of the very privileges that the statue’s muse restricted during his life.

The situation left me wondering: as an immigrant, where do I fit into this complex dynamic? As the Blanket Exercise began, the narrator representing European colonial powers introduced himself. The utterance of an unmistakably Serbian name immediately captured my attention, which was followed by a short comment from the speaker on his family’s origins from the Balkan peninsula of Europe. Shortly after, he became one of my interlocutors.

Janko was unlike any of my other interlocutors. He was born and raised in the area, and yet was completely fluent in Serbo-Croatian. He was heavily involved with the Indigenous community in Toronto, and considered himself an ally. He rejected the notion that he was

Canadian. He rejected the notion that he was White, although he accepted that he was a beneficiary of its privilege. Janko explained that Serbians are a displaced people, and discussed possible rhetorical and cultural re-appropriation from the responsible colonial powers. Rather than merely becoming an ally to his Indigenous friends, he embodied their ideals in his own struggles. I never imagined an interlocutor like Janko existed in the Former-Yugoslav immigrant community when I began this project. I was still contemplating my friend’s words from his social media message: “They lost the war.”

In situating Former-Yugoslavs, this thesis demonstrated the importance of immigrants in the process of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples as well as of the Indigenous peoples in understanding migrant identities in Canada. Furthermore, embracing complexity can better

prepare activists in combatting nationalist movements, whose reductive essentialization have the consequences of displacing peoples rather than effectively addressing public issues and social tension. I conclude with the invitation for others to pursue systematic research of immigrant communities in order to gain a much deeper insight into the great diversity of non-Indigenous peoples in Canadian urban areas. This kind of research can inform how new Settlers can most effectively be allies to Indigenous peoples.

As the above quote suggests, my interlocutor Bojan’s uncle invoked Indigenous North

Americans as symbol of political and social resistance on European soil. As social movements like Idle No More become more popular, Indigenous peoples are increasingly becoming a symbol for resistance in Canada through their decolonial agency. For this reason, it is important to examine Indigenous peoples’ encounters with immigrant populations – especially those immigrants who can relate in some way to Indigenous peoples through experiences of displacement and racialization, such as Former-Yugoslavs. This will determine whether

Canadian identity will evolve in reconciliation with Indigenous identities, or whether decolonization will confront Canadian identity.

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